Novel
Les Baigneurs du lac Rose
Not translated into English
Tanella Boni · 1995
Synopsis
A journalist, Lénie investigates the migration that followed in Africa after the defeat of Samory, a figure of resistance to the French conquerors. On the shores of Lac Rose in Senegal, she meets Yêté, a painter, and falls in love with him; but he disappears without a trace. While a new wave of political violence spreads across the continent, she searches for him from Côte d'Ivoire to Paris, and through him searches for the image of Samory.
Context
The novel appeared in Abidjan in 1995 from Nouvelles Éditions ivoiriennes. In an interview given the following year to the magazine Amina, the author said that Lake Retba really exists but can also be understood symbolically, and that the book blends journalism, history and romantic passion; the action moves from the author's country to Paris and Senegal. The real and the marvellous mingle in it, and the colonial past sheds light on the violence of the present.
Who it is for
A novel of about one hundred and forty pages in its first edition, in French, in a writing close to poetry.
Prizes and reception
Reissued in Paris in 2002 in a paperback series; in 2026 Amadou Elimane Kane hailed it as an eminently poetic and universal work.
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